In June 2005, the TB Alliance approached Abbott and was granted the rights to develop a class of quinolones that falls under certain Abbott patents.
This will allow the Alliance and its research partners the scientific freedom to advance its quinolone discovery program and ensure that any resulting drug from this program would be priced affordably for a TB indication in developing countries. The class, known as 2-pyridones, has been shown to have very powerful activity against both replicating and non-replicating TB bacteria.
The TB Alliance is working with the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) to develop a series of compounds in this class and the project is now in the lead optimization stage, having synthesized over 450 quinolones.